Do you think the legal career will turn around? Forum

[totesTheGoat]

Let's try it with a case in point: take someone who could earn 30k with their humanities degree. They go to BYU for three years - 22k/yr, and with the opportunity cost (assuming they get unpaid work interning in the summer), and that's 156k spent. Now their income before would have been 30k, they're now up easily (within reasonable expectation - not talking about the tiny fraction that are unemployed) earning 20k more than they did before (the median at BYU is a good deal more than 50k, but let's go with 50k as a reasonable expectation). 20k more, with 156k debt. Again, it'd take about 8yrs to break even. And this is a sub par example - that person obviously should have has SOME scholly, they could have been Mormon (damn idiot not being one), worked part time, etc.

You're not taking risk into account. You haven't taken risk into account the whole time. You can't just pick some random scenario where the person works and some random scenario where the person goes to school and compare them. You have to look at the probabilities of each outcome and find an expected value based on those probabilities.

[dabigchina]

Get an MBA, that's really the only graduate degree that's acceptable to get just because you don't know what to do.

This is false. Most students in top MBA programs know exactly what they want to do when they graduate.

[NoBladesNoBows]

[dabigchina]

Get an MBA, that's really the only graduate degree that's acceptable to get just because you don't know what to do.

This is false. Most students in top MBA programs know exactly what they want to do when they graduate.

Uhh what? I didn't say that most MBAs don't know what they want to do, I said that it's an acceptable degree to get if you don't. I'm also not referring solely to top MBA programs, as MBAs don't face employment problems anything like those of JDs (mid-range salary jobs exist, employers outside of top i-banks and MBB hire from all over the map in terms of rankings, etc.).

Most MBA programs want to see that you have some vision for your degree, either in the interview or the essays. "Because idk" usually doesn't cut it unless you are applying to some truly desperate/shitty programs

Shitty MBA programs are bad too. Are they as abusive as TTT law schools? Maybe no. Should you do research and only attend programs in the top 15-20? Absolutely. You don't want to shell out 160k to get a job in some mid/back office function making 60-70k.

[A. Nony Mouse]

What about my criticisms? Because again, I think you're mostly arguing against a strawman, and also being overly positive. If you're looking at lifetime earnings for law school, you have to recognize that someone who doesn't go to law school - even if they do a "crap" humanities major - may well end up with decent lifetime earnings as well. And the lifetime earnings only come into play if someone can get a job as an attorney to begin with.

Yeah, but the issue is that those decent lifetime earnings for humanities majors can't create a median of 70k - the median is pretty darn low.

I think this is a wild generalization, and it doesn't make law school at cost the only alternative.

I get that you're less debt-averse than many people. But I also think a lot of people applying to law school don't really get what the debt means to their life. And I think saying that saying a school like BC is expensive but affordable is a little too cavalier about debt. It's $50k a year - that's a lot of money (plus living expenses - which you'd have to pay for anyway, but wouldn't be going into debt and paying interest on if you're working).

^_- really? You don't think it's accurate that the median starting salary for humanities majors is well below 70k? Maybe I phrased that poorly. My point is that when you weigh up the differences between expected income without law school vs. Expected income with, that more than makes up for the difference.

Again, on COL, it's inappropriate to throw that in WITH THE opportunity costs. It makes for really bad math.

I wasn't talking about starting salaries, I was talking about lifetime earnings. People here are assuming that because many entry level jobs out of college don't pay well, that's all someone without a law degree is going to make, forever. That's not the case. Will some people with law degrees make more over their careers than some people with humanities BAs? Sure. But it's really impossible to predict with any certainty where any one of those 2 types will end up, and the end of their lives.

Also, you think $50k debt a year + COL and interest on that is affordable?

[Troianii]

I wasn't talking about starting salaries, I was talking about lifetime earnings. People here are assuming that because many entry level jobs out of college don't pay well, that's all someone without a law degree is going to make, forever. That's not the case. Will some people with law degrees make more over their careers than some people with humanities BAs? Sure. But it's really impossible to predict with any certainty where any one of those 2 types will end up, and the end of their lives.

Oh okay, yeah lifetime earnings is a different case. But uh... are you quibbling now? I mean yeah we can't be absolutely certain, in the same sense as we can't be absolutely certain that a student going to Harvard law will find a job when they get out. But we can make a pretty good guess based on the statistics.

I guess I'm just a little unsure where you're going at this point.

Also, you think $50k debt a year + COL and interest on that is affordable?

It depends on a lot of factors, but putting aside any special financial circumstances, it's really just about job prospects, and that depends a lot on where you're going. But if we figure 50k/yr w/15k/yr COL, that's 195k - roughly (not figuring interest). With that debt (so this is assuming no undergraduate debt, which is the major variable), you'd generally be looking at a monthly payment of $2,250. That sucks - it's 27k/yr. But THEN what matters is the applicant's position before that. Suppose the applicant has an undergrad degree in business, from an at least decent school - they could easily have been working at 45k+ (and I'm low-balling here - more than that is typical). So IF the law degree gives them a starting income of 60k, then after ten years they'd still be 255k behind on opportunity costs, and that is NOT worth it.

My basic idea of this is if ten years out of law school your increased earning is enough to make up for the tuition and opportunity costs of law school, so that you've broken even, then it's worthwhile. In the cases I presented before, the person could expect to reach that point in under 8yrs, earning what was the 25th percentile for their college's grads. In this case I just mentioned, it would take far longer than 10yrs.

But obviously I'm not saying that people should be going to a law school ranked somewhere in the 30s for 50k/yr and pay 15k/yr in living expenses. What I was countering was the idea stated by another poster that there are only two routes worth going: a) T-14 with a scholarship, or b) another decent school with a VERY big scholarship. To disagree with that I don't need to be saying that it's worthwhile to go to a tier 2 school at an exhorbitant full sticker price and live it up, driving up your COL - I'm not saying that.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Where I'm going is saying that I don't think statistics about average lifetime earnings are a great basis for taking on debt, honestly, because any individual's path is still too unpredictable.

Mostly I think the "law school is a better option than not going to law school for many humanities grads" is flame, because it creates a false dichotomy, and it also reduces criteria for future career to one thing, lifetime earnings. Obviously being able to support yourself is important, but there are other grounds for choosing a career.

I just remember that for a while in the early days of the recession I saw a ton of people saying "don't go to law school, become a nurse, there's a shortage, nurses will always have a job, good pay" etc. Which never made sense to me because what about someone choosing to go to law school would make anyone think that person would be better at being/want to be a nurse? Your arguments kind of sound like that to me.

In any case, again, some people are more debt/risk averse than others, and I agree with the people who've said that your model doesn't fully account for the risk involved. So I guess to go back to my first point, if you personally want to use these kinds of earnings calculations as a basis for your decision, go for it. There are lots of people who'd rather just avoid the debt to begin with, though, and there's a concern around here that a lot of prospective applicants aren't fully aware of the risks. So the concern is that your calculations run the risk of people justifying poor economic choices (in part because some of the specific examples you've used, like BC being expensive but affordable, or average salary coming out of UNH, seem kind of dubious).

[Troianii]

Let's try it with a case in point: take someone who could earn 30k with their humanities degree. They go to BYU for three years - 22k/yr, and with the opportunity cost (assuming they get unpaid work interning in the summer), and that's 156k spent. Now their income before would have been 30k, they're now up easily (within reasonable expectation - not talking about the tiny fraction that are unemployed) earning 20k more than they did before (the median at BYU is a good deal more than 50k, but let's go with 50k as a reasonable expectation). 20k more, with 156k debt. Again, it'd take about 8yrs to break even. And this is a sub par example - that person obviously should have has SOME scholly, they could have been Mormon (damn idiot not being one), worked part time, etc.

You're not taking risk into account. You haven't taken risk into account the whole time. You can't just pick some random scenario where the person works and some random scenario where the person goes to school and compare them. You have to look at the probabilities of each outcome and find an expected value based on those probabilities.

^_- That's not what I was doing. What I was doing was looking at someone who works earning x and seeing, based on a presumed income out of law school (for which I've stuck around the 25th percentile salary for law schools so no one could whine about "well that's the median" crap"). Why? Because what I was saying is that what makes sense in applying to law school isn't some cut and dry advice like, "only T-14 with scholarship or some other closely ranked school with a HUGE scholarship" (paraphrasing). That might make sense for a recent Harvard business grad, but it wouldn't make sense for most people, because for most people there the net benefits of going to law school - even assuming earnings at the 25th percentile - outweigh the costs.

The statistical probability is actually that the law school applicant would be much better off going to law school, assuming (duh) that they're a competitive applicant who can even get into a decent tier 1 (at no point was I talking about TTT). What is a real concern for the law school applicant is the unlikely worst case scenario. which is really bad.

[Troianii]

Where I'm going is saying that I don't think statistics about average lifetime earnings are a great basis for taking on debt, honestly, because any individual's path is still too unpredictable.

Mostly I think the "law school is a better option than not going to law school for many humanities grads" is flame, because it creates a false dichotomy, and it also reduces criteria for future career to one thing, lifetime earnings. Obviously being able to support yourself is important, but there are other grounds for choosing a career.

I just remember that for a while in the early days of the recession I saw a ton of people saying "don't go to law school, become a nurse, there's a shortage, nurses will always have a job, good pay" etc. Which never made sense to me because what about someone choosing to go to law school would make anyone think that person would be better at being/want to be a nurse? Your arguments kind of sound like that to me.

In any case, again, some people are more debt/risk averse than others, and I agree with the people who've said that your model doesn't fully account for the risk involved. So I guess to go back to my first point, if you personally want to use these kinds of earnings calculations as a basis for your decision, go for it. There are lots of people who'd rather just avoid the debt to begin with, though, and there's a concern around here that a lot of prospective applicants aren't fully aware of the risks. So the concern is that your calculations run the risk of people justifying poor economic choices (in part because some of the specific examples you've used, like BC being expensive but affordable, or average salary coming out of UNH, seem kind of dubious).

Well of course there are other grounds - I mean if someone doesn't want to be a lawyer to begin with I don't know why they'd be considering it for money's sake. There are a lot easier and more lucrative routes to go. But, for someone who wants to be a lawyer, the advice previously given - (essentially) "T14 with scholarship or closely ranked school with huge scholarship, or nothing" really isn't good advice, nor does it make sense.

I get what you're saying with the nursing bit - the simple reality is that there are a lot of people who are just miserable working. I've known a handful that hate any work, and for those people it makes sense to just chase the money - they're going to be miserable anyway. There are a lot of people I've heard say things along the lines of, "no matter how much you think you'll love a job, it always becomes work." That's a far more fundamental philosophical point than we're getting at here, but I just think it should be noted that those people exist. What I was saying, again, was that for someone who wants to be a lawyer - actually wants to - it can significantly better someone financially without meeting the criteria capitol laid out.

I'm actually encouraging more full awareness, which is why I often link to LST school reports - I don't think the very general advice given by capitol is accurate, informative, or really helpful. What is important is the increased earnings potential vs. the cost, and obviously you want the expected increased earnings to be a good bit higher than the costs, because there is some variability - risk - in the increased earnings, but the costs are pretty well fixed when you send your seat deposit.

I see no reason to think UNH law's posted salaries are dubious - they, like Houston, have a very strong niche. Where Houston is very big on oil & gas, UNH is huge on patents. Both areas are niche and lucrative.

[A. Nony Mouse]

An average salary is useless for the reasons already stated, and it's not at all clear how many UNH grads are reporting salaries. It's like Vermont Law touting its environmental speciality. A lot of employed VT students actually do work in environmental law, but that doesn't say much about how many VT grads in any given class get employment.

I mean, I mostly agree with you, but for a lot of people who really do decide to go to law school because they don't know what else to do, t14 with $ or strong regional with $$$ is a good starting point. (I say this as someone who went to a strong regional.)

[Troianii]

An average salary is useless for the reasons already stated, and it's not at all clear how many UNH grads are reporting salaries. It's like Vermont Law touting its environmental speciality. A lot of employed VT students actually do work in environmental law, but that doesn't say much about how many VT grads in any given class get employment.

I mean, I mostly agree with you, but for a lot of people who really do decide to go to law school because they don't know what else to do, t14 with $ or strong regional with $$$ is a good starting point. (I say this as someone who went to a strong regional.)

Did I say average? I meant median. Get rid of that bimodal problem doesn't it? Anyways, you can check the figures for yourself on UNH at the link below. Again, it's not simply that they have a specialty - hell, W&M has (or tries to have) a specialty in public interest law, and you don't see their grads making bookou bucks - because there isn't a ton of money in public interest law! And there isn't a ton of money in environmental law either, but patent law and energy/gas/oil law? Yup, there's money in that.

Well yeah, if you can get into a T14 then you're in pretty good shape, because generally that means that you will likely have some small scholarship from somewhere in the T14, or some school just a few ranks down will give you a nearly full ride - but that's if you're in the running for the T14 to begin with. Obviously, that is what makes sense for people in that grouping, but for people outside that grouping that general is basically, "you're not good enough, f*** off." And the simple reality I'm pointing to is that that's just not true. Obviously I'm not saying, "go to any TTT and pay 50+k sticker price and live it up with a higher COL than any college student should have", I'm simply saying that the guideline given by capitol was way, way too narrow to even be reasonable.

[MistakenGenius]

Post removed.

[DrRighteous]

Did I say average? I meant median. Get rid of that bimodal problem doesn't it?

Afraid not. The only appropriate measure of central tendency for a bimodal distribution is the mode. Both mean and median misrepresent it, largely because you're really looking at two separate populations that have been smooshed together (roughly but not perfectly, private v. public sector). Mean and/or median in either of the subpopulations would work but not looking at them combined.

[A. Nony Mouse]

How is "go to a strong regional with money" telling non-T14ers they're not good enough, fuck off?

Also, apparently for UNH's class of 2013 (the most recent data available), 47 grads of 107 reported salaries; the 25th percentile of that 47 was $55k, the median was $90k, and the 75th percentile was $135k. The number of students making $90k or more was 10. The students who didn't report salaries probably aren't making much. Like I said, I actually agree with a lot of what you're saying, but your numbers aren't very good.

[84651846190]

Lol @ the idea of projecting lifetime earnings based on the current (shitty) legal market as anything like they have been in the past few decades. Some people are just willfully delusional about wanting to go to law school.

[Troianii]

Did I say average? I meant median. Get rid of that bimodal problem doesn't it?

Afraid not. The only appropriate measure of central tendency for a bimodal distribution is the mode. Both mean and median misrepresent it, largely because you're really looking at two separate populations that have been smooshed together (roughly but not perfectly, private v. public sector). Mean and/or median in either of the subpopulations would work but not looking at them combined.

^_- Not really. The bimodal is heavy to the left side - about 50% of new lawyers started at 40k-60k, with 17% of lawyers falling in or around 160k. Average is much more easily distorted, whereas with the median you always know that if the median is $100k, then half of the grads started out at more, half at less. The median is far less susceptible to the issues caused by the bimodal than the average is.

[Troianii]

Lol @ the idea of projecting lifetime earnings based on the current (shitty) legal market as anything like they have been in the past few decades. Some people are just willfully delusional about wanting to go to law school.

^_-

hahaha, yeah, lolz at what no one said....

[DrRighteous]

Did I say average? I meant median. Get rid of that bimodal problem doesn't it?

Afraid not. The only appropriate measure of central tendency for a bimodal distribution is the mode. Both mean and median misrepresent it, largely because you're really looking at two separate populations that have been smooshed together (roughly but not perfectly, private v. public sector). Mean and/or median in either of the subpopulations would work but not looking at them combined.

^_- Not really. The bimodal is heavy to the left side - about 50% of new lawyers started at 40k-60k, with 17% of lawyers falling in or around 160k. Average is much more easily distorted, whereas with the median you always know that if the median is $100k, then half of the grads started out at more, half at less. The median is far less susceptible to the issues caused by the bimodal than the average is.

I believe what you are referring to is the median's superiority over the arithmetic average in resisting the influence of outliers. This is more relevant in the case of skewed distributions; bimodal distributions have a different set of challenges than skewed distributions.

The whole point of central tendency is to describe where the bulk of people fall in the distribution. The goal is to be able to give the best estimate of where someone will fall if you know nothing else about them. The median and mean both fail to provide useful estimates of where the bulk of the observations fall in a bimodal distribution because they describe a location in the distribution that doesn't correspond to the bulk of observations (which by definition fall in the two modes).

Further reading:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3157145/

Or just google bimodal distribution + central tendency.

[TLSModBot]

I'd also like to add that you two are in the forum "Ask a Law Student / Graduate", not "Ask a 0L", so you really have no place to be giving advice in here anyway. Maybe that should tell you something?

I'm not actually weighing in on this topic since I know how much TLS loves a doom-sayer's circle jerk, but this made me laugh. NoBladesNoBows, I don't know who you actually are since you're not an important enough poster to remember. But this genuinely made me laugh. You're criticizing 0Ls for weighing in here, but then I look at your post history and you've been a 1L for all of 8 weeks now? LOL. You don't have any more of a fucking clue about things than anyone else in the world. Stop being a cunt and let the people who actually know what they're talking about talk.

This was unnecessarily harsh - this whole subject (long term projections on the future of the legal profession and/or long-term desirability of going to law school) is something even several years of practice (which is at or around where even the most aged TLS'ers are) isn't going to shed too much light on. Yes the critique above is a little pot-kettle, but NoBladesNoBows has been pretty measured as compared to the weird nonsense the 0L's have been spouting.

[Troianii]

Did I say average? I meant median. Get rid of that bimodal problem doesn't it?

Afraid not. The only appropriate measure of central tendency for a bimodal distribution is the mode. Both mean and median misrepresent it, largely because you're really looking at two separate populations that have been smooshed together (roughly but not perfectly, private v. public sector). Mean and/or median in either of the subpopulations would work but not looking at them combined.

^_- Not really. The bimodal is heavy to the left side - about 50% of new lawyers started at 40k-60k, with 17% of lawyers falling in or around 160k. Average is much more easily distorted, whereas with the median you always know that if the median is $100k, then half of the grads started out at more, half at less. The median is far less susceptible to the issues caused by the bimodal than the average is.

I believe what you are referring to is the median's superiority over the arithmetic average in resisting the influence of outliers. This is more relevant in the case of skewed distributions; bimodal distributions have a different set of challenges than skewed distributions.

The whole point of central tendency is to describe where the bulk of people fall in the distribution. The goal is to be able to give the best estimate of where someone will fall if you know nothing else about them. The median and mean both fail to provide useful estimates of where the bulk of the observations fall in a bimodal distribution because they describe a location in the distribution that doesn't correspond to the bulk of observations (which by definition fall in the two modes).

Further reading:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3157145/

Or just google bimodal distribution + central tendency.

Yes but again, the main problem with this is that it the bimodal isn't an even split. 50% of lawyers are in the 40-65k range, 17% pretty much at 160k, 7% below the bottom range (below 40k), with 25% remaining in between 65k and 160k (oh, and like 1% above 160k). And the reality is that the really, really crappy left end - that 7% below 40k, and those one the lower end of the 40-65k grouping, are overwhelmingly dominated by TTT grads. There are some 200 law schools, with Cooley craking out what was it, 4% of law grads? It's a damned puppy mill. Students going to tier 1 law schools should not be in any SERIOUS worry of starting below 45k - they should actually fairly comfortably be able to say that they'll start above 50k.

[Troianii]

nvm

[84651846190]

Lawyers are like ugly prostitutes. I say ugly because they have no redeeming qualities that might cause clients to treat them like anything other than galley slaves in their giant corporate empires. Like ugly prostitutes, lawyers must distinguish themselves based on how masochistic or extreme they can be in "performing" for their clients, since the work is all doable from an intellectual perspective (meaning being intellectually superior does not make you "prettier") - you just need to find someone willing to wade through the shit for hours and hours to get it done. The ones willing to do almost anything at any hour command top dollar. Here is a fine example of this concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0XWSBA ... be&t=1m26s. Note that this video is likely NOT designed to recruit people from law school (because why in the hell would any sane person want to work at Jones Day after watching this). Rather, I think it's designed to attract CLIENTS. It sends the message: WE DO NOT VALUE OUR OWN LIVES. WE WILL DO ANYTHING TO SERVE YOU. This is the wonderful mentality you MUST embrace to succeed in law.

[DrRighteous]

Yes but again, the main problem with this is that it the bimodal isn't an even split. 50% of lawyers are in the 40-65k range, 17% pretty much at 160k, 7% below the bottom range (below 40k), with 25% remaining in between 65k and 160k (oh, and like 1% above 160k). And the reality is that the really, really crappy left end - that 7% below 40k, and those one the lower end of the 40-65k grouping, are overwhelmingly dominated by TTT grads. There are some 200 law schools, with Cooley craking out what was it, 4% of law grads? It's a damned puppy mill. Students going to tier 1 law schools should not be in any SERIOUS worry of starting below 45k - they should actually fairly comfortably be able to say that they'll start above 50k.

The bimodal distribution that depicts lawyer starting salary isn't just related to school quality, much of it is related to sector - it's largely public v. private (but this distinction is fuzzy, of course).

If you google bimodal distributions, you'll see that bimodal distributions in real data don't typically have two equal modes because data are messy. That doesn't change the fact - and yes, it is not my opinion, it is how statistics work - that the mode(s) is/are the only appropriate measure of central tendency for multimodal distributions. And you demonstrate this in your own defense, as the best description you could pull together of this distribution is one that talks about the concentration of observations around these modes.

I'm done with this now because I've given you the relevant information/explanation + you can always google this.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yes but again, the main problem with this is that it the bimodal isn't an even split. 50% of lawyers are in the 40-65k range, 17% pretty much at 160k, 7% below the bottom range (below 40k), with 25% remaining in between 65k and 160k (oh, and like 1% above 160k). And the reality is that the really, really crappy left end - that 7% below 40k, and those one the lower end of the 40-65k grouping, are overwhelmingly dominated by TTT grads. There are some 200 law schools, with Cooley craking out what was it, 4% of law grads? It's a damned puppy mill. Students going to tier 1 law schools should not be in any SERIOUS worry of starting below 45k - they should actually fairly comfortably be able to say that they'll start above 50k.

What is your evidence for this? Do you think very low paying law jobs (say, legal aid or small firms) pay T1 grads any more than they pay TTT grads? Is there any reason to think the crappy TTT grads are in those positions as opposed to not in legal positions at all?

I kind of feel like you're making the same argument you criticize, except that your cutoff is lower (t1 rather than t14).

[NoBladesNoBows]